Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-05-14

dead at its " sound. The sweat on
the river Of death. The clock strikes
-four" and the rosy dawn soon after
begins to look through the lattice upon
the pale form that looks like a detained
spectre of the night. Soon in a mad
house she will mistake her ~ringlets for
curling serpents, and thrust her white
hand through the bars of the prison,
and smite her head, rubbing it back as
though to push the scalp from the
skull, shrieking: my brain. my
brain!' q. stand off from that! Why
will you 60 sounding your way amid
the reefs and warning buoys, when
there is such a vast ocean in which you
may voyage, all sail set?
If have this morning successfully
laid down any principles by which YOU
may Judge in regard to books and
newspapers, then l have done some
thing which shall not be ashamed. on
the day which shall try every mans
work, of what sort it is.
Cherish good books and newspapers.
Beware of the bad ones. One column
may save your soul; one paragraph
may ruin it. Benjamin Franklin said
that the reading of Cotton Mathtrs
Essay or Doing Good" moulded his en-
tire life. The assassin of Lord Russell
declared that he was led into crime by
reading n vivid romance. The o
secrated John Angel James, than
whom England never produced Il better
man. declared III his old days that he
had never yet got over the evil effects
Of having for fifteen minutes once read
It bad book. But | need not 90 so far
off. | could come near home, and tell
you of something that occurred in my
college days. | could tell you of a
comrade who was great-hearted. noble
and generous. He vas studying FOR
IN honorable profession; but he had
an infidcl book in his trunk, and he
said TO me one day: .'DeWitt, would
you like to read it?' | said: Yes, |
would. | took the BOOK and read il
only for a few minutes. | was really
startled with what saw there, and
handed the book back to him and said
You had better destroy that booK.'
No, he kept it. He re-read it.. After
awhile he gave up religion "a a myth
He q We up God as a nonenti y. He
gave up the Bible AS "A fable. He CAV,
up the church of Christ AS a useless in,
stituiion. He gave up good morals rs
being unnecessarily stringent. | have
heard OF him but twice in many years
The time before the last | head Of hin
he was a confirmed inebriate. Til,
last | heard of him he was coming on
of an insane as>lum-in body. mine
and soul an awful wreck. | bciicv'
that one intidel book killed him for two
worlds.
Go home to-day. and look through
your library, and then, having look
though your library. look on the stanC
whore YOU keep your p~ict"rials an'
newspapers. and apply the Christian
: principles | have laid down this norm
ing. If there is anything in YOU
home that cannot stand The test. do no
give it away. for it might spoil an i'm
mortal soul; do not sell IL, FIR tn,
money You get would be the price o
blood: but rather kindle a fire on vow
kitchen hearth, or in your back yard
and then drop the poison in it, an'
: keep stirring the blaze until from pre-
face to appendix there shall not be
single paragraph left, and the bonfire
in Brooklyn shall be as consuming a,
that N IN the streets of Ephesus